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government-sanctioned audit team tasked with probing the role of agroforestry firms in triggering forest fires has said it will investigate the potential involvement of the Forestry Ministry.

Team head Bambang Hero Saharjo said the team would begin probing the role of the ministry during its next audit in Central Kalimantan.

'€œWe want to understand the role played by the Forestry Ministry in relation to the companies that are given permits [to operate],'€ Bambang told The Jakarta Post earlier this week.

In order to obtain business permits, industrial forest companies must apply to the Forestry Ministry after receiving recommendations from governors who have consulted with the mayor or regent overseeing the forests in question.

'€œWe have experience in Riau, where we identified several regional administrations [Rokan Hilir regency and Dumai city] that denied the presence of firms bringing more harm than benefit to the people,'€ he said. '€œWe wanted to see how the ministry responded to this [finding].'€

Bambang was referring to the team'€™s previous audit in Riau, which was the first of its kind.

The audit was conducted between July 1 and Aug. 25 by a team consisting of the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), the REDD+ Management Agency, the Forestry Ministry and the Riau Police.

All 17 companies audited failed the compliance test, which measures the level of their compliance with environmental regulations.

Riau was selected as the first province to be audited because 93.6 percent of the 12,541 hotspots recorded in the country between Jan. 2 and March 13 were located in the province.

Last year, slash-and-burn fires on plantations in Riau and Kalimantan triggered severe haze that engulfed Singapore and some parts of Malaysia.

After completing the audit in Riau, the team plans to proceed with audits of firms operating in other provinces suffering from endemic forest fires, with Central Kalimantan being the first priority.

Heru Prasetyo, the head of REDD+ and coordinator of the audit team, said the audit on Central Kalimantan would start later this month.

Heru added that the audit would not be delayed on account of the transition between governments in Jakarta. '€œWhat has been started has to be finished.'€

Heru added that the governor of Central Kalimantan had showed a strong commitment to assisting with the audit.

'€œAs politics in Jakarta undergoes changes, the audit process in the provinces will proceed,'€ he said. '€œHopefully changes in key officials [in the management of forests] will not come anytime soon.'€